WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) - The federal government should not consider a new stimulus package, even with US unemployment likely "to penetrate the 10 percent barrier and stay there for a while", former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said.

"The focus has got to be on trying to get the economy going, but you also have to be careful that in trying to do too much you can actually be counterproductive," Mr. Greenspan said on ABC's "This Week" programme.

Mr. Greenspan appeared on ABC two days after the Labour Department reported an unemployment rate of 9.8 percent, the highest since 1983. The report prompted President Barack Obama to say he's working to "explore any and all additional measures" to spur growth.

Third-quarter economic growth is likely to be three percent and "possibly even higher", Mr. Greenspan said today on ABC. Only 40 percent of the $787 billion economic stimulus package approved in February is "in place", he said.

"It's far better to wait and see how this momentum that's already begun to develop in the economy carries forward," he said.

While last week's unemployment report was "pretty awful no matter how you looked at it," the economy is recovering and it would be "premature" for Obama and Congress to enact another stimulus package, Mr. Greenspan said.

"We are in a recovery and I think it would be a mistake to say the September (unemployment) numbers alter that significantly," he said.

The "silver lining" to the unemployment numbers is that firms have cut jobs expecting "the economy would go down far more sharply than it in fact did" after the "whole financial system imploded" following the September 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Mr. Greenspan said.

US firms "laid off a very substantial number of people to the point that the actual hours worked fell even more than the economy", and this trend "can't continue", he said.

"At some point we're going to start to see an improvement in employment," Mr. Greenspan said.

Still, to stop unemployment from rising the economy needs to add jobs at a rate of "more than 100,000 a month", the former Fed chief said, adding he is "particularly concerned" about the number of people unemployed for six months or longer.

The Labour Department's September report said 5.44 million people have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, a nine percent increase over August.

Mr. Greenspan said he is worried about people who are "out of work for very protracted periods" losing their skills, which could be an "irretrievable loss" to the US economy.

"What makes an economy great is a combination of the capital assets of the economy and the people who run it," the former Fed chief said.

While opposed to new stimulus measures, Mr. Greenspan said "temporary actions" such as extending unemployment benefits are justified. "I don't actually consider those types of actions stimulus programs," he said.

The US Senate is expected to debate this week an extension of unemployment benefits "by another 12 or 13 weeks" in states where the jobless rate exceeds 8.5 percent, and by four weeks in other parts of the country, Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said on the ABC programme.

The House passed a similar extension on September 22 by a margin of 331 to 83.